


Rocking The Boat

by ypsese



Series: Change of Scenery [16]
Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst and Feels, Apollo (Percy Jackson) Needs a Hug, Can thy arrow stfu, Desperate Jason Grace, F/M, Heavy Angst, Humour, Jason Grace is a Dork, Neptune, Neptune Child! Reader, Past Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Percy Jackson References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ypsese/pseuds/ypsese
Summary: There was definitely something going on between those two. Even though I had been confined to the flabby meat sack known as Lester Papadopoulos. I could tell when people had history. But I wasn't sure if it was good or bad.I never would’ve guessed it though.OR: "You look good considering the last time I saw you we were fighting a giant primordial Goddess along side a brother I didn’t know I had."





	Rocking The Boat

✣

**Apollo's Perspective**

Piper knocked on the door and poked her head in. Suddenly the young men no longer looked bored. Piper said something to the teacher, who blinked a few times, then waved go-ahead to a young man in the middle row.

A moment later, Jason Grace joined us in the walkway. I had only seen him a few times before – once when he was a praetor at Camp Jupiter; once when he had visited Delos; then shortly afterwards, when we had fought side by side against the Giants at the Parthenon.

He’d fought well enough, but I can’t say I’d paid him any special attention. In those days, I was still a god. Jason was just another hero in the Argo II’s demigod crew. Now, in his school uniform, he looked quite impressive. His blond hair was cropped short. His blue eyes flashed behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

Jason closed the classroom door behind him, tucked his books under his arm and forced a smile, a little white scar twitching at the corner of his lip.

"‘Piper. Hey." I wondered how Piper managed to look so calm. I’d gone through many difficult break-ups. They never got easier, and Piper didn’t have the advantage of being able to turn her ex into a tree or just wait until his short mortal life was over before returning to earth.

Jason took a moment to look around the group. His eyes locked with (Y/N)'s and some unknown significance flashed between their gazes.

"...(Y/N)?"

"Sup Grace," The daughter of Neptune hummed. "I haven't seen you since-"

"The war with Gaia," Jason breathed out. "Yeah..."

There was definitely something going on between those two. Even though I had been confined to the flabby meat sack known as Lester Papadopoulos. I could tell when people had a history. But I wasn't sure if it was good or bad.

"You look good, considering last time I saw you we were fighting a giant primordial Goddes at a Greek demigod camp."

Jason grinned, his cheeks going red.

(Y/N) had the same tongue and cheek, annoying humour as her Greek brother Percy Jackson. Not to mention his Mediterranean looks, dark, dishevelled hair and mischevious smile. If I hadn't been a sorry excuse for a teenager and back to my divine self, I definitely would've flirted with someone as pretty as her.

Piper coughed, interrupting their intense moment. "This is –"

"Meg McCaffrey," Jason said. "And Apollo. I’ve been waiting for you guys.’

He didn’t sound terribly excited about it. He said it the way someone might say, I’ve been waiting for the results from my emergency brain scan.

Meg sized up Jason as if she found his glasses far inferior to her own. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Jason peered down the walkway in each direction. ‘Let’s go back to my dorm room. We’re not safe out here.’

We had to get past a teacher and two hall monitors, but, thanks to Piper’s charmspeak, they all agreed that it was perfectly reasonable for the five of us (including three females) to stroll into the dormitory during classroom hours.

Once we reached Jason’s room, Piper stopped at the door.

"Define not safe."

Jason peered over her shoulder. "Monsters have infiltrated the faculty. I’m keeping an eye on the humanities teacher. Pretty sure she’s an empousa. I already had to slay my AP Calculus teacher, because he was a blemmyae."

"I wonder how a Blemmyae teaches calculus..." (Y/N) pondered. I wanted to slap that girl, but I was afraid she'd throw me through a wall.  
  
"Blemmyae, huh?" Meg reappraised Jason as if deciding that his glasses might not be so bad. "I hate blemmyae."

Jason smirked. "Come on in."

I would’ve called his room spartan, but I had seen the bedrooms of actual Spartans. They would have found Jason’s dorm ridiculously comfortable. The fifty-foot-square space had a bookcase, a bed, a desk and a wardrobe.

On Jason’s wall hung a framed picture of his sister Thalia smiling at the camera, a bow slung across her back, her short dark hair blown sideways by the wind. Except for her dazzling blue eyes, she looked nothing like her brother.

"Your sister says hello, by the way," I said.

Jason’s eyes brightened. "You saw her?"

I launched into an explanation of our time in Indianapolis: the Waystation, the emperor Commodus, the Hunters of Artemis rappelling into the football stadium to rescue us. Then I backed up and explained the Triumvirate, and all the miserable things that had happened to me since emerging from that Manhattan dumpster.

Meanwhile, Piper sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against the wall, as far as possible from the more comfortable sitting option of the bed. (Y/N) being her typical annoying self, was analysing Jason's room for what either seemed like threats or food. That girl was always looking for food. She had a bottomless stomach.

Meg stood at Jason’s desk, examining some sort of school project – foam core studded with little plastic boxes, perhaps to represent buildings. When I casually mentioned that Leo was alive and well and presently on a mission to Camp Jupiter, all the electrical outlets in the room sparkled.

Jason looked at Piper, stunned. "I know," she said. "After all we went through."

"I can’t even..." Jason sat heavily on his bed. "I don’t know whether to laugh or yell."

"Don’t limit yourself," grumbled Piper. "Do both."

"So..." Jason fiddled with his glasses. "If you two have been together from the start, Piper was showing you the Labyrinth and Grover helped you get to Palm Springs. Why are you here (Y/N)?"

"Hey," (Y/N) snapped her fingers. "Lester here keeps complaining about how he fell from the sky and landed in a trashcan. But for some reason, The Dark Prophecy mentioned a child of Neptune or Poseidon. I got summoned by Meg, fell through the floor of my bio class and got slapped in the face by Palm Springs heatwaves."

"You're annoying," Meg grumbled.

"And you're short." (Y/N) quipped back. "Anyway, I'd much prefer to take the spotlight considering Perce has a sister on the way."

I hadn't expected something genuine to come from her lips. But the dark disposition behind her comment made my stomach churn. (Y/N) acted obtuse and ignorant, I wasn't sure why she did. But it might've been some sort of coping mechanism for all the chaos and danger the life of a demigod attracts.

Meg called from the desk, ‘Hey, what is this?’

Jason flushed. "A personal project."

"It’s Temple Hill," Piper offered, her tone carefully neutral. "At Camp Jupiter."

I took a closer look. Piper was right. I recognised the layout of the temples and shrines where Camp Jupiter demigods honoured the ancient deities. Each building was represented by a small plastic box glued to the board, the names of the shrines hand-labelled on the foam core. Jason had even marked lines of elevation, showing the hill’s topographical levels.

I found my temple: APOLLO, symbolised by a red plastic building. It was not nearly as lovely as the real thing, with its golden roof and platinum filigree designs, but I didn’t want to be critical.

"Are these Monopoly houses?" Meg asked.

Jason shrugged. "I kinda used whatever I had – the greenhouses and red hotels." I squinted at the board. I hadn’t descended in glory to Temple Hill for quite some time, but the display seemed more crowded than the actual hill. There were at least twenty small tokens I didn’t recognize. I learned in and read some of the handwritten labels.

"Kymopoleia? My goodness, I haven’t thought about her in centuries!"

"Aye isn't that my like," (Y/N) pursed her lips. "Cousin? Sister maybe? I dunno, something like a billion times removed..."

I swallowed my frustration. "Why did the Romans build her a shrine?"

"They haven’t yet," Jason said. "But I made her a promise. She … helped us out on our voyage to Athens." The way he said that I decided he meant she agreed not to kill us, which was much more in keeping with Kymopoleia’s character.

"I told her I’d make sure none of the gods and goddesses were forgotten," Jason continued, "either at Camp Jupiter or Camp Half-Blood. I’d see to it they all had some sort of shrine at both camps."

Piper glanced at me. "He’s done a ton of work on his designs. You should see his sketchbook." Jason frowned, clearly unsure whether Piper was praising him or criticizing him. The smell of burning electricity thickened in the air.

"Well," he said at last, "the designs won’t win any awards. I’ll need Annabeth to help with the actual blueprints."

"Honouring the gods is a noble endeavour," I said. "You should be proud." Jason did not look proud. He looked worried.

I remembered what Medea had said about the Oracle’s news: The truth was enough to break Jason Grace. He did not appear to be broken. Then again, I did not appear to be Apollo.

Meg leaned closer to the display. "How come Potina gets a house but Quirinus gets a hotel?"

"There’s not really any logic to it," Jason admitted. "I just used the tokens to mark positions." I frowned. I’d been fairly sure I’d got a hotel, as opposed to Ares’s house, because I was more important.

Meg tapped her mother’s token. "Demeter is cool. You should put the cool gods next to her."

"Meg," I chided, "we can’t arrange the gods by coolness. That would lead to too many fights." Besides, I thought, everyone would want to be next to me.

"Anyway," Piper interrupted. "The reason we came: the Burning Maze." She didn’t accuse Jason of holding back information. She didn’t tell him what Medea had said. She merely studied his face, waiting to see how he would respond.

Jason laced his fingers. He stared at the sheathed gladius propped against the wall next to a lacrosse stick and a tennis racket. (These fancy boarding schools really offered the full range of extracurricular options.)

"I didn’t tell you everything," he admitted. Piper’s silence felt more powerful than her charmspeaking. "I – I reached the Sibyl," Jason continued. ‘I can’t even explain how. I just stumbled into this big room with a pool of fire. The Sibyl was … standing across from me, on this stone platform, her arms chained with some fiery shackles."

"Herophile," I said. "Her name is Herophile."

Jason blinked, as if he could still feel the heat and cinders of the room. "I wanted to free her," he said. "Obviously. But she told me it wasn’t possible. It had to be..."

Jason gestured at me. "She told me it was a trap. The whole maze. For Apollo. She told me you’d eventually come find me. You and her – Meg. She didn't mention anything about (Y/N) though..."

"Yay," (Y/N) cheered sarcastically.

"Herophile said there was nothing I could do except give you help if you asked for it. She said to tell you, Apollo – you have to rescue her."

Piper rested her head against the wall. She stared at a water stain on the ceiling. "What else did Herophile say?"

Jason’s face tightened. "Pipes – Piper, look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It’s just –"

"What else did she say?" Piper repeated.

Jason looked at (Y/N) then Meg, then at me, maybe for moral support. "The Sibyl told me where I could find the emperor," he said. "Well, more or less. She said Apollo would need the information. He would need … a pair of shoes. I know that doesn’t make much sense."

"I’m afraid it does," I said.

Meg ran her fingers along the plastic rooftops of the map. "Can we kill the emperor while we’re stealing his shoes? Did the Sibyl say anything about that?"

Jason shook his head. "She just said that Piper and I … we couldn’t do anything more by ourselves. It had to be Apollo. If we tried … it would be too dangerous."

Piper laughed drily. She raised her hands as if making an offering to the water stain. "Jason, we’ve been through literally everything together. I can’t even count how many dangers we’ve faced, how many times we’ve almost died. Now you’re telling me you lied to me to, what, protect me? To keep me from going after Caligula?"

"I knew you would have done it," he murmured. "No matter what the Sibyl said."

"Then that would’ve been my choice," Piper said. "Not yours."

He nodded miserably. "And I would’ve insisted on going with you, no matter the risk. But the way things have been between us..." He shrugged.

"Working as a team has been hard. I thought – I decided to wait until Apollo found me. I messed up, not telling you. I’m sorry." He stared at his Temple Hill display, as if trying to figure out where to place a shrine to the god of feeling horrible about failed relationships. (Oh, wait. He already had one. It was for Aphrodite, Piper’s mom.)

(Y/N)'s face turned stony as she looked between the bickering ex-couple. For once I had no idea what she was thinking. But it wouldn't have been good. It made me want to know even more so how Jason and (Y/N) knew it each other.

Piper took a deep breath. "This isn’t about you and me, Jason. Satyrs and dryads are dying. Caligula’s planning to turn himself into a new sun god. Tonight’s the new moon, and Camp Jupiter is facing some kind of huge threat. Meanwhile, Medea is in that maze, throwing around Titan fire –"

"Medea?" Jason sat up straight. The lightbulb in his desk lamp burst, raining glass across his diorama. "Back up. What’s Medea got to do with this? What do you mean about the new moon and Camp Jupiter?"

I thought Piper might refuse to share the information, just for spite, but she didn’t. She gave Jason the lowdown about the Indiana prophecy that predicted bodies filling the Tiber. Then she explained Medea’s cooking project with her grandfather.

Jason looked like our father had just hit him with a thunderbolt. "I had no idea."

Meg crossed her arms. "So, you going to help us or what?"

Jason studied her, no doubt unsure what to make of this scary little girl in teal camouflage. "Of - of course," he said. "We’ll need a car. And I’ll need an excuse to leave campus."

He looked hopefully at Piper. She got to her feet. ‘Fine. I’ll go talk to the office. Meg, (Y/N)...come with me, just in case we run into that empousa. We’ll meet you boys at the front gate. And, Jason –?"

"Yeah?"

"If you’re holding anything else back –"

"Right. I – I get it."

Piper turned and marched out of the room. Meg gave me a look like, 'You sure about this?'

"Go on," I told her. "I’ll help Jason get ready."

(Y/N) rubbed the tattoo on her forearm, she'd been surprisingly silent since Jason had told her about the Sibyl. Her jade eyes glittered, she looked like she'd just been socked in the stomach. Or realised she'd missed the last word on her crossword puzzle that had been in plain sight.

"Is something wrong?" Jason asked. His voice was a lot softer when he spoke to (Y/N), and I watched his neck go red. 

How interesting...

"No..." her response was hardly believable. "I'll get going..."

**✣**

**(Y/N)'s Perspective.**

I didn't like Pandai. They were annoying, fuzzy, big-eared morons.

I could feel blood trickling out of my ear, curtsey from a fist to the jaw. I tried summoning water from overboard, but the force of my powers rocked the boat and sent everyone stumbling. Piper almost slid off the deck side.

Sometimes my abilities were a real pain in the ass.

Jason sighed miserably. "Sorry, guys. Things didn’t exactly go as planned."

The largest guard, who had punched me right in the nose cackled. "The pretty girl tried to charmspeak us! Pandai, who hear every nuance of speech! The boy tried to fight us! Pandai, who train from birth to master every weapon! The scary one rocked the ship and almost killed us all! What a moron! Now you will all die!"

My self-esteem was getting whacked at more than my ear was.

"Die! Die!" barked the other pandai, though I noticed the white-furred youngster did not join in. The zip locks were rubbing uncomfortably against my wrists, ripping the skin raw.

Meg glanced from enemy to enemy, probably gauging how fast she could take them all down. The arrows pointed at all of us made for tricky calculations.

"Meg, don’t," Jason warned. "These guys – they’re ridiculously good. And fast."

"Fast! Fast!" the pandai barked in agreement.

"And humble," I grunted out.

I scanned the deck. No additional guards were running towards us, no searchlights were trained on our position. No horns blared. Somewhere inside the boat, gentle music played – not the sort of soundtrack one might expect during an incursion. Kinda like the Moana soundtrack. (Don't get my brother started on that movie, he froths at the mouth whenever 'You're Welcome' comes on.)

The pandai had not raised a general alarm. Despite their threats, hadn't killed us yet. They’d even gone to the trouble of zip-tying our hands together. Why? They knew I could control water, what use would zip locks do? I could just tip the ship over and send everyone into the water.

P.S, I wasn't going to do that.

Apollo turned to the big Pandai. "Good sir, are you the panda in charge?"

He hissed. "The singular form is pandos. I hate being called a panda. Do I look like a panda?"

Apollo decided it would be best not to answer that.

"Well, Mr Pandos –"

"My name is Amax," he snapped.

"Of course. Amax." Apollo studied his majestic ears, then made an educated guess. "I imagine you hate people eavesdropping on you.’

Amax’s furry black nose twitched. "Why do you say this? What did you overhear?"

"Nothing!" Apollo assured him. "But I bet you have to be careful. Always other people, other pandai snooping into your business. That’s – that’s why you haven’t raised the alarm yet. You know we’re important prisoners. You want to keep control of the situation, without anyone else taking the credit for your good work."

The other pandai grumbled. "Vector, on boat twenty-five, is always spying,’ the dark-furred archer muttered."

Taking credit for our ideas,’ said the second archer. "Like Kevlar ear armour."

"Exactly!" he said, "Which is why, uh, before you do anything rash, you’re going to want to hear what I have to say. In private."

Amax snorted. "Ha!" His comrades echoed him: "HA-HA!"

"You just lied," Amax said. "I could hear it in your voice. You’re afraid. You’re bluffing. You have nothing to say."

"I do," Meg countered. "I’m Nero’s stepdaughter."

Blood rushed into Amax’s ears so rapidly I was surprised he didn’t faint. The shocked archers lowered their weapons.

"Timbre! Crest!" Amax snapped. "Keep those arrows steady!’"He glowered at Meg. "You seem to be telling the truth. What is Nero’s stepdaughter doing here?"

"Looking for Caligula," Meg said. "So I can kill him."

The pandai’s ears rippled in alarm. My stomach heaved and knotted, I almost doubled over the power of the ocean was so immense.

Amax narrowed his eyes. "You say you are from Nero. Yet you want to kill our master. This does not make sense."

"It’s a juicy story," Apollo promised. "With lots of secrets, twists, and turns. But if you kill us you’ll never hear it. If you take us to the emperor, someone else will torture it out of us. We would gladly tell you everything. You captured us, after all. But isn’t there somewhere more private we can talk, so no one will overhear?"

Amax glanced towards the ship’s bow as if Vector might already be listening in. ‘You seem to be telling the truth, but there’s so much weakness and fear in your voice that it’s hard to be sure.’

"Uncle Amax." The white-haired pandos spoke for the first time. ‘Perhaps the pimply boy has a point. If it’s valuable information –’

"Silence, Crest!" snapped Amax. "You’ve already disgraced yourself once this week." The pandos leader pulled more zip ties from his belt.

"Timbre, Peak, bind the pimply boy and the stepdaughter of Nero. We will take them all below, interrogate them ourselves and then hand them over to the emperor!"

"Yes! Yes!" barked Timbre and Peak. So that was it? Four powerful demigods and one former major Olympian god were led as prisoners into a super-yacht by four fuzzy creatures with ears the size of satellite dishes?

Not my finest hour. I mean, I was supposed to be the sister of Percy Jackson. God, I could already imagine him laughing at me for my poor form. That I'd been punched in the nozzle by a fluffy sloth.

So naturally, I had other plans.

As soon as Timbre moved towards Meg, a fist of water exploded from overboard and engulfed the pandai. His cheeks puffed up like a guinea pig, his eyes bugged. He tried to speak, but he ended up just swallowing a tonne of water. See? Morons.

I rolled back and flung myself forward, doing this weird little flip and landing firmly on my feet. I'd managed to hack away at my confinements while Apollo talked absolute dross.

Amax snarled. But before he could order anyone to shoot, fly or punch me in the face again. Another spike of water and caught him right in his big ass ears.

"Pah!" Amax gurgled, losing his footing and hitting the deck. No pun intended.

Peak knocked back an arrow, but he was so flustered he had no idea who to shoot at. Just enough time for me to rub at my roman tattoo and summon my despondent axe.

A lot of people didn't like my weapon of choice. It wasn't typical of a demigod and certainly not one of Neptune or Poseidon. It was made from celestial bronze and engraved with scary looking lions, they also could've been dragons. The pictures weren't self-explanatory, it was up to interpretation.

Meg and Apollo didn't waste any time. My leading man Lester bolted towards Piper and Jason and began to untie them.

The children of Demeter are all about flowers. Amber waves of grain. Feeding the world and nurturing life. They also apparently excel at planting scimitars in the chests of their enemies. Meg’s Imperial gold blades found their targets. They hit Amax with such force he exploded in a cloud of yellow dust.

I sidestepped an arrow from Timbre and launched my axe straight into his chest like a pro cricket player. The double-sided battle axe embedding itself in his sternum and causing him to disintegrate inward like sand through an hourglass.

Crest fired his bow. Fortunately for me, his aim was off. The arrow buzzed past my face, the fletching scraping my chin, adding to the deltas of blood trickling down my face.

The distraction of Crest caused Timbre to break free from his water jail cell, and he was sent spluttering across the deck, head first.

Piper finally broke free from her confinements and rolled precisely in time for Timbre to faceplant into the place where she had just been sitting.

The sky flashed, dark claws of thundered painted the atmosphere, tendrils of electricity wrapped around Timbre, frying him into an ash pile.

Useful, yes, but not the sort of stealth we’d been hoping for.

‘Oops,’ said Jason.

Oopsie indeed, Jason Grace.

With a horrified whimper, Crest dropped his bow. He staggered backward, struggling to draw his sword. Meg raised her scimitars towards the young Pandai, he burst into tears.

‘No!’ Crest wailed. ‘You will die! The –’

Why did Crest not hear the enemies sneaking up behind him? I don’t know. I guess he had humongous ears for nothing. Or maybe Jason's lovely firework display had fried his eardrums.

Whatever the case, Crest hurtled forward, crashing face-first into the side of the deck, smashing his face painfully into what seemed like fiberglass. 

On his back glistened two deep impressions in the shape of horse hooves.

But before we could even gain our bearings. An enormous horse came barrelling onto the deck.

He was a beautiful animal – tall and muscular, his coat gleaming like a sunlit cloud. His silky white tail swished behind him as if daring any flies, demigods or other pests to approach his hindquarters.

He wore neither tack nor saddle, though golden horseshoes gleamed on his hooves. His very majesty grated on me. His jaded voice made me feel small and unimportant. But what I really hated were his eyes. Horse eyes should not be so cold and intelligent.

‘Incitatus,’ Apollo said.

He locked eyes with Lester as no horse should be able to do – his vast brown pupils glinting with malicious awareness. ‘Apollo.’

Piper looked stunned, as one does when encountering a talking horse on a huge yacht filled with Pandai ashes.

She began to say, ‘What the –?’

Incitatus charged. He trampled straight over the outside coffee table and head-butted Piper against the wall with a sickening crunch. Piper dropped to the deck.

"Yo," I coughed. "That was downright rude, she didn't even finish her sentence."

‘Well, now.’ Incitatus surveyed the damage – the overturned pedestals and destroyed coffee table; broken bottles of exotic spring water trickling onto polished timber.

Crest groaned on the floor, rubbing his head where the hoove marks had imprinted themselves into his skull.

"Sorry to intrude on your intrusion,’ he said. ‘I had to knock the girl out quickly, you understand. I don’t like charmspeak."  
  
Wow...at least he was polite.

"Don't even think about rocking the ship Neptune spawn." Incitatus shook his mane. "I'll charge you quicker than you can say, 'Zeus's Beard."

I rolled my eyes. "One: I wouldn't even say Zeus Beard because I'm Roman, Talking Horse. Two: you're a talking-horse."

Maybe I should've learned from Percy not to sass big, talking horses. Because as soon as the words left my mouth, I got two lovely golden horseshoes to the face.

✣

**(Y/N)' Perspective**

I had no idea what was going on. No idea. Nutta. No comprendae. 

What I'd woken up to, I couldn't explain without vomiting. 

I was in a weird room, trapped in a spinning, venti cage that was shredding my skin and clothes.

My head was killing me. The side of my face was pulsing, I could practically feel blood running and gushing to my forehead. Bruises lined my arms, blood was pooling at every laceration.

"W-What the..." My head did some ballerina spins and started twisting my brain up in sailor knots. The world spun around me as if the entire throne room had become a giant ventus prison.

The pain was horrible, unbearable, I was trying to find my voice through all the pain and confusion.

"Stop!" I heard someone yell. "Pulling it out will make it worse."

I blinked, feeling my split lip swell. My vision swarmed in different colours before it cleared and I found myself finally aware

The emperor was standing over someone's body, I couldn't see who it was, I'd hoped it was an enemy. He looked surprisingly young and lithe though his eyes were too far apart, his ears too prominent and his smile was too thin.

He was dressed in white trousers, white boat shoes, a striped blue-and-white shirt, a blue blazer and a captain’s hat. He looked ridiculous.

I looked past him and saw Piper. She lay shivering as if she were cold. Crest was crouched nearby, trying in vain to cover his massive ears. No doubt he was regretting his decision to follow his dream of taking music lessons.

I fixed my eyes on the twin cyclones, hoping that Jason and Meg had somehow escaped. Jason was floating deathly still, his eyes closed, his face like stone.

Meg, on the other hand, clawed at her ventus cage, screaming words I couldn’t hear. Her clothes were in tatters. Her face was crosshatched with a dozen bleeding cuts, but she didn’t seem to care. She kicked and punched and threw packets of seeds into the maelstrom, causing festive bursts of pansies and daffodils among the shrapnel.

"He stabbed himself in the chest," Caligula said. "How can it be worse?"

"Fool," the woman muttered. "I don’t want him to bleed out.’ She removed a black silk bag from her belt, pulled out a stoppered glass vial and shoved the bag at Caligula.

"Hold this." She uncorked the vial and poured its contents over the entry wound.

Blood soaked Apollo's shirt, he was lying on his gasping and choking. An arrow had immersed itself in his chest.

My heart stopped. What had happened while I was unconscious?

The woman who I came to realise was Medea examined the wound. She cursed in ancient Colchian, "This idiot can’t even kill himself right," grumbled the sorceress. "It appears that, somehow, he missed his heart."

Medea snapped her fingers at the emperor. "Hand me the red vial.’

Caligula scowled, apparently not used to playing surgical nurse. "I never rummage through a woman’s purse. Especially a sorceress’s."

"If you want to be the sun god," Medea snarled, "do it!"

Caligula found the red vial. Medea coated her right hand with the gooey contents. With her left, she grabbed the arrow and yanked it from Apollo's chest. He screamed. Medea quickly lathered the hole in his chest that was bubbling with blood with a thick red substance like the wax of a letter seal.

Medea examined the wound, her hands sticky with blood and magic paste; Caligula standing over Apollo, his imposing white trousers and shoes freckled with his blood; and Piper and Crest on the floor nearby, their presence was momentarily forgotten by our captors.

Even Meg seemed frozen within her churning prison, horrified by what Apollo had done. The side of my head was pounding, I definitely had a concussion, maybe a spinal fluid milkshake spilling out of my ears.

That was the last moment before everything went wrong, before our great tragedy unspooled – when Jason Grace thrust out his arms, and the cages of wind exploded.

✣

  
**Apollo's Perspective**

We all should have died in the blast. Of that I’m sure. But Jason channelled the explosion up, down and sideways in a two-dimensional wave – blasting through the port and starboard walls; bursting through the black ceiling that showered us with golden candelabras and swords; jackhammering through the mosaic floor into the bowels of the ship.

The yacht groaned and shook – metal, wood and fibreglass snapping like bones in the mouth of a monster. Incitatus and Caligula stumbled in one direction, Medea in the other. None of them suffered so much as a scratch. Meg McCaffrey, unfortunately, was on Jason’s left. When the venti exploded, she flew sideways through a newly made rent in the wall and disappeared into the dark. I tried to scream.

(Y/N) Jackson (In hindsight I'm not really sure how or why she has the same last name as Percy Jackson because they have different mothers, but I'd never brought that up.) who was on Jason's right somehow managed to land on two feet, her left eye welted up, bruised and her lips mishappen. Her once pretty face had been spoiled by Incititus's golden hooves.

I could barely move. There was no chance I could go after my young friend. I cast around desperately and fixed my gaze on Crest. The young pandos’s eyes were so full they almost matched his ears. A golden sword had fallen from the ceiling and impaled itself in the tile floor between his legs.

"Rescue Meg," I croaked, "and I will teach you how to play any instrument you wish." I didn’t know how even a pandos could hear me, but Crest seemed to. His expression changed from shock to reckless determination. He scrambled across the tilting floor, spread his ears and leaped into the rift.

The break in the floor began to widen, cutting us off from Jason and (Y/N). Suddenly, ten-foot-tall waterfalls poured in from the damaged hull to port and starboard – washing the mosaic floors in dark water and flotsam, spilling into the widening chasm in the centre of the room.

(Y/N)'s green eyes glittered in bloodlust. Apparently, she wasn't too happy with Caligula, and this was the last place anyone wanted to be when a daughter of Neptune got angry.

Below, broken machinery steamed. Flames guttered as seawater filled the hold. Above, lining the edges of the shattered ceiling, pandai appeared, screaming and drawing weapons – until the sky lit up and tendrils of lightning blasted the guards into dust.

Jason stepped out of the smoke on the opposite side of the throne room, his gladius in his hand.

Caligula snarled. "You’re a couple of those Camp Jupiter brats, aren’t you?"

"I’m Jason Grace," he said. "Former praetor of the Twelfth Legion. Son of Jupiter. Child of Rome. But I belong to both camps."

"And you?" Caligula turned. "You're Neptunes offspring aren't you?"

(Y/N) didn't respond, she simply summoned her battleaxe, glaring at the emperor.

"Good enough," Caligula said. "I’ll hold you responsible for Camp Jupiter’s treason tonight. Incitatus!"

The emperor snatched up a golden spear that was rolling across the floor. He vaulted onto his stallion’s back, charged the chasm and leaped it in a single bound.

Jason threw himself aside to avoid getting trampled. (Y/N) stepped sideways and a geyser took her into the air. Caligula swiped at the pillar of rising water, grunting in surprise.

From somewhere to my left came a howl of anger. Piper McLean had risen. Her lower face was a nightmare – her swollen upper lip split across her teeth, her jaw askew, a trickle of blood coming from the edge of her mouth. She charged Medea, who turned just in time to catch Piper’s fist in her nose. The sorceress stumbled, pinwheeling her arms as Piper pushed her over the edge of the chasm.

The sorceress disappeared into the churning soup of burning fuel and seawater. Piper shouted at Jason. She might have been saying COME ON! But all that came out was a guttural cry.

Jason was a little busy. He dodged Incitatus’s charge, parrying Caligula’s spear with his sword, but he was moving slowly. I could only guess how much energy he’d expended controlling the winds and the lightning.

(Y/N) had his back though, she caught Caligula right in the shoulder with her axe. He grunted like someone had tickled his foot and turned. Her expression morphed in realisation and her eyes narrowed.

"Get out of here!" Jason called to us. "Go!’

An arrow sprouted from his left thigh. Jason grunted and stumbled. Above us, more pandai had gathered, despite the threat of severe thunderstorms.

(Y/N)'s axe was somehow back in her hand, the next arrow that was aimed at Jason got cut straight in half. A jet of water exploded from the ravine, dozens of Pandai were displaced, falling overboard and into the churning waters.

Piper yelled in warning as Caligula charged again. Jason just managed to roll aside. He made a grabbing gesture at the air, and a gust of wind yanked him aloft. Suddenly he sat astride a miniature storm cloud with four funnel clouds for legs and a mane that crackled with lightning – Tempest, his ventus steed. He rode against Caligula, jousting sword versus spear.

"(Y/N)," I could barely hear Jason's voice of the rushing water. "You have to get out of here."

"Fat chance Grace," The daughter of Neptune grunted, rolling away from Caligula's charge. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I told you this isn’t a game!" yelled Caligula. "You don’t walk away from me alive!"

Below, an explosion rocked the ship. The room split further apart. Piper staggered, which probably saved her life; three arrows hit the spot where she’d been standing. Somehow, she pulled me to my feet. I was clutching the Arrow of Dodona, though I had no memory of picking it up.

I saw no sign of Crest, or Meg, or even Medea. An arrow sprouted from the toe of my shoe. I was in so much pain already I couldn’t tell if it had pierced my foot or not. Piper tugged at my arm. She pointed to Jason and (Y/N), her words urgent but unintelligible. I wanted to help them, but what could I do?

I’d just stabbed myself in the chest. I was pretty sure that if I sneezed too hard, I would displace the red plug in my wound and bleed to death. I couldn’t draw a bow or even strum a ukulele. Meanwhile, on the broken roof line above us, more and more pandai appeared, eager to help me commit arrowcide. Piper was no better off.

"(Y/N) please," Jason begged. "You can't do this!" Another arrow took Jason in the upper arm.

"Jason," A massive fist of water reached the ravine edge and slammed right into the side of Incitatus. They were sent spiralling sideways like the floored had lifted.

"I told you," (Y/N) observed the emperor as he found his bearings. "I'm never leaving you behind."

I had no idea what they were talking about, but I figured Jason knew exactly what she was talking about from the expression that came across his face.

"This isn't an argument." Jason's sky blue eyes flared with panic. "I meant what I said, before. At camp."

Jason bleeding from arrows in each limb now, yet somehow still able to raise his sword. The space was too small for two men on horses, yet they circled one another, trading blows. Incitatus kicked at Tempest with his golden-shod front hooves.

The ventus responded with bursts of electricity that scorched the stallion’s white flanks. As the former praetor and the emperor charged past each other, Jason met my eyes across the ruined throne room.

His expression told me his plan with perfect clarity. He yelled again, ‘GO! Remember!’ I was slow, dumbstruck.

Jason held my gaze a fraction of a second too long, perhaps to make sure that last word sank in: remember – the promise he had extracted from me a million years ago this morning, in his Pasadena dorm room. While Jason’s back was turned, Caligula wheeled about. He threw his spear, driving its point between Jason’s shoulder blades.

At least, that's he probably thought was going to happen.

At the very last moment, a flash of dark hair and ocean caught my vision. The ocean breeze filled my lungs. (Y/N) had somehow managed to vault herself across the room, using Tempest as leverage and take the spear straight to the chest.

I was all too familiar with things impaling people in the chest area. I took one look at her, and I knew it'd pierced her heart.

Jason's entire body went rigid.

Piper howled.

(Y/N) stiffened, her green eyes bloodshot and bubbling with tears. She slumped forward, legs crumbling beneath her. The spear followed her down, lodged uncomfortably within her lacerated being.

Jason's expression did a complete one-eighty. His once angry eyes that were burning into the back of Caligula's head, swelled. His scarred lips went from firm to trembling. He seemed to have lost all his will, all the fight he had left. Like he'd been waiting for this to happen and (Y/N) had been the one contingency he didn't account for.

Blood started to seep into the front of her purple Camp Jupiter shirt. (Y/N) choked up, her breathing broken and shallow.

"I'm...s-sorry," was the last thing she got out before she lost all balance and her body folded like a stack of cards.

Tempest disappeared from beneath him, and he fell to the floor.

I could practically hear his knees crunch, but he didn't seem to care. His hands were shaking, his chest was heaving, I saw the bob of his throat as he swallowed down what appeared to be a cry.

He reached for (Y/N)'s body, but she slumped forward, eyes fluttering shut as blood covered her skin, her tanned, Mediterranean skin.

Her body teetered for a moment before it fell into the watery ravine. Her back bobbed on the surface water for a moment before she was swallowed entirely by the power she once willed.

Jason's eyes were blurred and glassy with tears. I hadn't known Jason very well, but it was apparent he had cared for (Y/N) very much, maybe even loved. I couldn't blame him. (Y/N) was a very lovable person.

I'd been with her since Waystation. I can't count how many times she'd saved me. How many times she'd made me laugh. How many burgers she'd eaten. Seeing her bruised and beaten body, fearful eyes and quivering words. My heart severed in my chest.

Arrows continued to rain around us. Caligula stared at me across the chasm – giving me the same displeased scowl my father used to before inflicting one of his punishments: Now look what you’ve made me do.

"I warned you," Caligula said. Then he glanced at the pandai above. "Leave Apollo alive. He’s no threat. But kill the demigods."

Piper howled, shaking with impotent rage. I stepped in front of her and waited for death, wondering with cold detachment where the first arrow might strike.

As the pandai drew their bows and took aim, the ship tilted, the water exploded from every fissure in the ravine, almost as if Neptune himself had sensed (Y/N)'s death and was burning with rage.

Suddenly Piper, Jason and I were whisked from the burning shell of the Julia Drusilla XII by a vast, soft wave – the water carrying out (Y/N)'s last orders to get us safely away, whether we wanted it or not.

I sobbed in despair as we shot across the surface of Santa Barbara Harbor, the sounds of explosions still rumbling behind us. 34 Surfing accident My new euphemism for Worst evening ever For the next few hours, my mind deserted me.

✣


End file.
